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Rosa Luxemburg was a critical thinker and author of many political and social reflections which to readers of today seem quite up to date. Particularly in the Global South, there seems to exist a stronger interest in Luxemburg’s work today, which is not surprising at all, considering that many problems she thought about are still existent – especially there. The participants of the International Rosa Luxemburg Conference in Bodø, Norway, in March 2023, discussed her role in the 21st century in quite some detail. The present anthology contains the conference’s extended proceedings and particularly focuses on two important elements in regard to Luxemburg: Her role for and within the global ›periphery‹ and her ›perception‹ in relation to other intellectuals, social democracy or the political left in a broader sense of the spectrum.

This book examines the increasing body of research dedicated to the lasting differences between the former separate states of the Federal German Republic (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it takes a broad view on German unification and transformation research. Transformation and unification processes in East and West Germany are still ongoing, and they may serve as a model for social change and its political, economic, and psychological consequences. Using advanced statistical methods of analysis, this edited volume provides insights into the valuable contextualization of individual and social phenomena that current research on German unification and transformation is producing. Following the open science mindset using code and data, the authors investigate temporal trends in (1) mental health, (2) political attitudes, and (3) work and family life. It explores changes in mental health and political attitudes, as well as continued differences in work and family arrangements, that may stem from heterogeneous experiences within the systems and during the transformation process. This book will appeal to scholars and students from the disciplines of sociology, political science, public health, social psychology, psychology, and communication science interested in postsocialist transition processes and temporal changes in individuals and societies.

In a world of deep political divisions and rising inequality, people feel the need for some form of collective resistance and transformative joint action. Calls for solidarity are heard everywhere. This book presents a critical proposal to guide our reflection on what solidarity is and why it matters. How is solidarity distinct from related ideas such as altruism, justice and fellow-feeling? What value does acting in solidarity with others have? In his lead essay, Andrea Sangiovanni offers compelling answers to these questions, arguing that solidarity is not just a fuzzy stand-in for feelings of togetherness but a distinctive social practice for an anxious age. His ideas are then put to the test in a series of responses from some of the world’s foremost philosophers and political theorists.

The digital PDF and EPUB versions of Chapters 3 and 16 are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0). Since the world economic crisis of 2007, commentators have pointed to the dangers of a capitalistic system that seems incapable of delivering sustainable growth and well-being. This bold new book offers an exhaustive diagnosis of global capitalism across the world’s nations. David Lane examines the nature and appeal of neoliberal capitalism according to different schools of thought, and he analyses proposals for its reform and replacement from state socialism and social democratic corporatism to self-sustaining networks. Looking ahead to a novel system of economic and political coordination based on a combination of market socialism and state planning, this book offers crucial insights for scholars thinking about alternatives to capitalism.

The digital PDF and EPUB versions of Chapters 3 and 16 are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0). Since the world economic crisis of 2007, commentators have pointed to the dangers of a capitalistic system that seems incapable of delivering sustainable growth and well-being. This bold new book offers an exhaustive diagnosis of global capitalism across the world’s nations. David Lane examines the nature and appeal of neoliberal capitalism according to different schools of thought, and he analyses proposals for its reform and replacement from state socialism and social democratic corporatism to self-sustaining networks. Looking ahead to a novel system of economic and political coordination based on a combination of market socialism and state planning, this book offers crucial insights for scholars thinking about alternatives to capitalism.

The digital PDF and EPUB versions of Chapters 3 and 16 are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0). Since the world economic crisis of 2007, commentators have pointed to the dangers of a capitalistic system that seems incapable of delivering sustainable growth and well-being. This bold new book offers an exhaustive diagnosis of global capitalism across the world’s nations. David Lane examines the nature and appeal of neoliberal capitalism according to different schools of thought, and he analyses proposals for its reform and replacement from state socialism and social democratic corporatism to self-sustaining networks. Looking ahead to a novel system of economic and political coordination based on a combination of market socialism and state planning, this book offers crucial insights for scholars thinking about alternatives to capitalism.

Without Rosi Wolfstein and Paul Frölich, our image of Rosa Luxemburg would be completely different today. In the 1920s, the couple worked together on the estate of the murdered politician, which made it possible to produce the first edition of her works. Later, when Frölich and Wolfstein had fled from the National Socialists into exile in France, one of the earliest and at the same time most authentic biographies of Luxemburg (Rosa Luxemburg: Gedanke und Tat) was written by both of them in 1939 under Frölich's name, which was fed by this rich store of knowledge. But who were Rosi Wolfstein and Paul Frölich, who seem almost forgotten today? Their own political careers each started in the SPD before World War I, led them through the anti-war camp to the founding congress of the KPD (Communist Party). While Frölich was elected to the Reichstag, Wolfstein sat in the Prussian Landtag. Out of anti-Stalinist conviction, they left the KPD and eventually became co-founders of the SAP (Socialist Workers' Party), which they headed before fleeing. But they returned to Germany... Riccardo Altieri illustrates in a very readable way the result of his research of several years into a double biography from the point of view of network history. Only by consulting international sources from Wolfstein's and Frölich's network could the study come into being at all, since the protagonists had not left a closed estate due to the persecution during the Nazi era.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down. Two years later the Soviet Union disintegrated. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union discredited the idea of socialism for generations to come. It was seen as representing the final and irreversible victory of capitalism. This triumphal dominance was barely challenged until the 2008 financial crisis threw the Western world into a state of turmoil. Through analysis of post-socialist Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as of the United Kingdom, China and the United States, Socialism, Capitalism and Alternatives confronts the difficulty we face in articulating alternatives to capitalism, socialism and threatening populist regimes. Beginning with accounts of the impact of capitalism on countries left behind by the planned economies, the volume moves on to consider how China has become a beacon of dynamic economic growth, aggressively expanding its global influence. The final section of the volume poses alternatives to the ideological dominance of neoliberalism in the West. Since the 2008 financial crisis, demands for social change have erupted across the world. Exposing the failure of neoliberalism in the United Kingdom and examining recent social movements in Europe and the United States, the closing chapters identify how elements of past ideas are re-emerging, among them Keynesianism and radical socialism. As those chapters indicate, these ideas might well have potential to mobilise support and challenge the dominance of neoliberalism.

"The aim of this collection is to make possible the forging of a more robust, politically useful, and theoretically elaborate understanding of working-class literature(s). These essays map a substantial terrain: the history of working-class literature(s) in Russia/The Soviet Union, The USA, Finland, Sweden, The UK, and Mexico. Together they give a complex and comparative – albeit far from comprehensive – picture of working-class literature(s) from an international perspective, without losing sight of national specificities. By capturing a wide range of definitions and literatures, this collection gives a broad and rich picture of the many-facetted phenomenon of working-class literature(s), disrupts narrow understandings of the concept and phenomenon, as well as identifies and discusses some of the most important theoretical and historical questions brought to the fore by the study of this literature. If read as stand-alone chapters, each contribution gives an overview of the history and research of a particular nation’s working-class literature. If read as an edited collection (which we hope you do), they contribute toward a more complex understanding of the global phenomenon of working-class literature(s)."

"Noam Chomsky visited India in 1996 and 2001 and spoke on a wide range of subjects, from democracy and corporate propaganda to the nature of the world order and the role of intellectuals in society. He captivated audiences with his lucid challenge of dominant political analyses, the engaging style of his talks, and his commitment to social equality as well as individual freedom. Chomsky’s early insights into the workings of power in the modern world remain timely and compelling. Published for the first time, this series of lectures also provides the reader with an invaluable introduction to the essential ideas of one of the leading thinkers of our time."